The Black Arts Movement (BAM) has become an increasingly popular
subject of critique in recent years. Despite the participation of some
of the most prolific women writers, artists, and activists of this
period, including Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Mari Evans, Audre
Lorde, and June Jordan (some of whom did not define themselves as
"black artists"), male artists and intellectuals are given
credit for shaping and codifying the aesthetic and political ideologies
of the BAM. Cherise Pollard reminds us that:

As they articulated black manhood through the pen, the gun, the
penis, and
the microphone, male poets in the Black Arts Movement defined and
reified
revolutionary black male identity.... [M]any [black women poets]
worked
both within and against the men's assumptions about the
relationships
between race and gender and art and politics. (Pollard 173)

The work produced by women writers and artists characterized the
ideological and propagandistic relationships between race, sex, and art
in ways that deserve careful examination. In his extensive project,
Afro-Blue: Improvisations in African-American Poetry and Culture, Tony
Bolden provides an overview of this subject as it relates to women
poets, stating that "much of black vernacular culture, like
American culture generally, is male-centered, and [i]s a product of that
culture." An acknowledgement of the ways in which male writers and
intellectuals of the BAM, such as Haki Madhubuti, Maulana Karenga, Amiri
Baraka, and Larry Neal "had not yet learned to question the narrow
framework in which gender is theorized in black culture" is
integral to an exploration of the ideals of this period (25). Indeed,
scholars are now beginning to recognize the complexities of the
aesthetics of this historical period in ways that move beyond popular
critiques of its masculinist ideological foundations. Such interests
privilege other aspects of BAM that recognize its artists' varied
approaches to executing its ideals.

Black American writers of preceding generations had debated,
discarded, and negotiated questions of cultural representation,
nationhood, and the role of the black writer in the articulation of such
concepts, and BAM writers of the 1960s and '70s would continue to
do the same. Looking at the goals of the BAM through the context of
local initiatives, in such cities as Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New
York, Detroit, and Chicago, is useful for engaging the ways in which BAM
principles were experimented with and sustained by black artists in
particular communities. Although New York is often understood to be at
the center of most of the artistic productivity of the BAM, due in part
to a migration of innovative black writers there during the 1950s and
'60s (Nielsen 79), the Movement would be shaped in other regions of
the U. S. as well. In Chicago, for instance, black artists were
affiliated with the Organization for Black American Culture (OBAC), a
multi-media initiative that would continue to thrive well into the
decade of the eighties. As James Smethurst suggests in a valuable
historical survey of BAM, "the numerous direct exchanges and
interconnections between African American cultural and political
activists in Chicago and Detroit made the Black Arts movement in those
cities exceptionally vital" (180).

For members of OBAC, both writing and the production of other
media of expression was germane to the communication of the
organization's specific objectives. For example, under the
direction of such members as artist Jeff Donaldson, one of the
"captains" of AFRICOBRA, the visual arts branch of OBAC, the
efforts of local artists to translate its ideals into visual media would
be realized in the construction of the in/famous "Wall of
Respect" on Chicago's South Side. As Margo Natalie Crawford
writes,

The OBAC visual arts workshop decided to shape the mural around
the
following categories: rhythm and blues, jazz, theater, statesmen,
religion, literature, sports, and dance. In each of these categories,
the
workshop members created a list of the black cultural
"heroes" who would
be represented on the Wall. (Collins and Crawford 25)

Like other OBAC works, the "Wall of Respect" was
intended to reflect the concerns and interests of black urban
communities, and it would draw significant attention from local and
national authorities that perceived it to be a message of radical and
potentially violent insurgence (Donaldson). Furthermore, as the Chicago
urban scene materialized as a source of inspiration for writers and
artists, the landscape, character, and history of this city marked a
spatial, symbolic, and cultural context that ultimately influenced OBAC
poetics.

For black artists like Johari Amini, this was especially true.
Born in Philadelphia in 1935, she began her writing career as Jewel C.
McLawler. Amini was educated at several institutions after moving to
Chicago in 1941 with her parents while she was a child. She married
activist Jawanza Kunjufu in 1951 and gave birth to a daughter,
Marcianna, and a son, Kim Allan. While a student at Chicago's
Wilson Junior College (now Kennedy-King City College), she met Haki
Madhubut--later founder of Chicago's Third World Press. She recalls
his having encouraged her to pursue her own writing goals. As a founding
member of the Organization for Black American Culture, along with
Rodgers and Madhubuti, Amini's poetic voice would emerge as one of
the most prolific within the Chicago Black Arts Movement. It would be
during this period that she would change her name to "Johari
Amini," Swahili for "Faithful Jewel." In 1968, she met
actor and director Val Gray-Ward and her husband, journalist Francis
Ward, who were the founding members of the Kuumba Performing Arts
Company in Chicago. It was also during this period that she began
meeting some of the most recognized and acclaimed black writers of this
period, including Illinois Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks, who performed
as a mentor for many of the "new," younger black artists of
this era. It was at Brooks's home that Amini met Nigerian writer
Chinua Achebe, who had been serving as a visiting faculty member at
Northwestern University while in exile. In 1970, Amini earned a B.A.
from Chicago State University, and in 1972, she earned an M.A. at the
University of Chicago (Amini, Interview).

It is noteworthy that the theme of writing as a method of
recording black culture and community is addressed in "To A Black
Writer," which appears in Amini's first collection of poetry,
Images in Black, published by Third World Press in 1967 (12). As the
narrator addresses the political urgency of written words and their
ability to preserve and define culture, while calling upon her
contemporaries to "give us prose / ... write the words / of
Blackness stolen," her words comply with the political and artistic
expectations of the broader Black Arts community with regard to the role
of black artists, who were considered to be figures of empowerment (ll.
11, 15, 16). Many of the pieces in Images suggest that such
ideals--perpetuated among black artists in Chicago and
nationwide--reflected aspirations that were ultimately impossible to
realize. In fact, despite the popularity of black art, the narrator
intimates that black artists must be inspired by an idyllic African
history in the creation of their work, and black art must be prophetic
and foreshadowing in its attempt to stimulate the consciousness of its
audiences. As the black artist "writes of why our blood / is poured
out" and "distil[s] the wisdom of beginnings," the artist
becomes a visionary for the future and fate of their community (ll. 21,
22, 8). Even as Amini's narrator privileges the aspirations of the
black artist, she recognizes that she can only write from her own
perspective and "tell it like it is." As a black artist of the
'60s and '70s, Amini honors a tradition of black writing that
demonstrates literacy and asserts humanity.

Several poems in Images construct images as metaphors for
characterizing black culture, nationhood, identity, and the role of the
black artist in projecting such concepts for their audiences'
consumption. The presumption that black audiences in urban areas like
Chicago, where people had experienced the impact of social, political,
and economic oppression upon their communities. "All material is
mute until the artist gives it a message, and that message must be a
message of revolution. ... [T]he real function of art is to make
revolution, using its own medium" (2087), wrote cultural critic
Maulana Karenga. The propagandist import of images as visual aesthetics
representing BAM ideals is the focus of many pieces included in
Amini's first collection, wherein she strategically and
paradoxically under-mines the legitimacy of visual characterizations of
black culture, community, and identity that had become integral to BAM
ideals of nation-building. Consequently, her critique of visual
aesthetics and iconography anticipates the often counterproductive ways
in which such resources are engaged in the work of today's
contemporary artists. As Angela Davis has argued, the reduction and
packaging of political ideology into popular media representations is
not emancipatory, but counterproductive (292-93). Thus, much of
Amini's work included in Images transcends the immediacy of the BAM
since it cautions against an over-reliance upon aesthetics in
representations of blackness that continue to be exploited in visual
media and performance.

In Amini's "Coronoch," the opening piece in
Images, audiences are confronted with explicit portrayals of violence
and oppression that appeal to an ambivalent concept of American
democracy (Images 1). References to the colors red, white, black, and
blue serve as metaphors dramatizing the human sacrifice and violence
that contributes to an ideal of American democracy. Images of
"burning ghettos," "bloated starvation," burning
blackness," "black blood," etc., invoke a collective,
historical memory of racial violence among the writer's key
audiences (ll. 12- 15). The image of the "spectre" referenced
in the poem that is "unseen / by masses" and "defined /
by few" is never fully clarified, yet its illusory, ethereal
qualities are meaningful (ll. 2-3, 6-7). The idea that only a marginal
number of individuals are capable of sensing the presence of the specter
in the poem could be a reference to the ways in which it tragically
eludes the masses and serves as a visually ambiguous yet powerful
symbol, as "prophetic voices" are "shouted down,"
"warned of fire" and "warned of patriotism" in this
scene of violence. The piece ends with mocking emphasis on the term
"DEMOCRACY," which is itself constructed as an illusion, and
which is preserved only through the mass killing of black bodies
"as black flesh burns blue" (ll. 22, 21).

Because quotidian approaches to black art relied upon
artists' ability to incorporate aesthetics with which audiences
could presumably identify, a Black Art that would speak "directly
to the needs and aspirations of Black America," in Larry
Neal's words, was essential (2039). Amini's reliance upon and
reconstruction of images of violence, insurgence, and civil unrest in
her writing--scenes that characterize the immediate and historical
epistemologies of violence against blacks--exemplifies her inclination
to respond to this objective. The final line of the poem, which states
that "atrocities preserve DEMOCRACY," implicates the
"pouring of black blood," the "drying of black
bones," and the "burning of black flesh" as tragic but
necessary consequences of preserving the myth of American freedom and
democracy ("Coronoch"). The references to the colors red,
white, and blue simultaneously conjure visions of nationalism and
freedom, violence and oppression. Amini's reliance upon and
critique of the universally recognizable and symbolic colors red, white,
and blue, as well as the incorporation of scenes of reactionary violence
inspired by racial subjugation, constitute methods of engaging audiences
in ways that reinforce the marketability of provocative images in
socially conscious black art.

The piece "Identity" further characterizes the extent
to which dialogue and verbal performance expose, determine, and shape
the aesthetic parameters of black art. Dedicated to Haki Madhubuti, who
may have well influenced the characterization in this piece, the poem
features two figures whose relationship is reminiscent of the
student/mentor relationship that existed between Amini and Madhubuti
during her early years as a developing Black Arts writer. The fact that
this piece is presented in the form of a dialogue between the
narrator/Amini and her teacher/Madhubuti as she "comes" into
"blackness" and achieves a heightened sense of cultural
awareness upon seeing a man "tall wearing a crown / of natural / a
prophet / creator of change" is relevant here (ll. 2-4). The
process of "becoming black" is presented in the form of a
catechism in which the narrator assumes the role of the
"student" and attempts to answer the questions posed by her
"teacher." The narrator's arrival at a final stage of
black consciousness is achieved only after this exchange takes place:
"The pain stopped I / breathed life / birth was completed,"
she expresses (ll. 43-45). Her evolution is analogous to the birthing
process, and in this context, Madhubuti not only administers the
procedure, but he also becomes the ostensible midwife, providing the
guidance, cajoling, and nurturing needed to expedite the narrator's
immanent and emerging "black" identity. As he poses the
necessary questions used to evaluate the extent to which the narrator
perceives herself to "be black," the narrator exposes her
uncertainty, and she is conscious of the fact that she cannot answer
"yes" to the question of whether or not she "THINK[S]
BLACK" because of her "imitationwhite hair" and her
"curlfree do" (ll. 32, 33) Madhubuti poses the questions
"What are you," "Are you Black," and "Do you
think Black" (ll, 27) to a narrator who, at the point of their
encounter, only imagines herself to be black and who is in fact fearful
of presenting herself to Madhubuti as a fully realized "Black
woman." Doubting her own self-image, the narrator is apprehensive
about responding to Madhubuti's questioning, "as birth is a
painful process," and she provides a rather ambiguous
response--"i am a person" (ll. 20-21, 18). It is not until he
asks "are you B L A C K" and the narrator reveals a conscious
betrayal of her race--"should i lie/say / yes ... no I need
time" (ll. 22, 24-25), that Madhubuti articulates the final and
most critical query, "do you THINK BLACK" (l. 27). Contrary to
the implication that simply "thinking" black justifies that
one is black, Madhubuti proffers a list of individuals who legitimately
represent "blackness" and in whom an image of this ideal is
reflected. Racial identity is treated not as an arbitrary or elusive
category of subjectivity here, but is instead defined by boundaries and
degrees of psychosocial commitments, and any question of this is
mitigated by Madhubuti's references to Malcolm X, James Baldwin,
Amiri Baraka, Patrice Lumumba, Stokely Carmichael, and W. E. B. Du
Bois--all are implicated as individuals who demonstrate
"acceptable" versions of black consciousness (ll. 37-42).
Subsequently, each of these male figures--Madhubuti included--assist the
female narrator in reaching her climactic point of "identity
reconciliation," and "growth was begun [and she] / was
sister" (ll. 46-47; emphasis added).

The opportunity to critique this interplay of words represents
not only a pedagogical moment between student and teacher, but also
serves as a critical space for a verbal exchange that symbolizes the
transitional moment between the narrator/ student's prior and
ostensible ignorance and her subsequent cultural enlightenment. In this
way, Amini creates a script in which the narrator recognizes and accepts
her black identity through an identifiable and specific paradigm that
actualizes what it means to "be black." Cultural identity is
conceptualized as a process realized through language and the
reinforcement of images that characterize blackness as an ideal.

As the poem "Identity" suggests, cultural identity can
be accessed through the dialogic process in which references to
appropriate images assist the narrator in the realization of an ideal
black identity and consciousness. However, the piece
"Faux-Semblant" conveys the inherent problem of relying upon
fixed notions of its ideal., and thus, Amini's treatment of
"images" goes counter to the conventions of Black Arts
principles (Images 4). In contrast to the poem "Identity," in
"Faux-Semblant"--a French phrase which, translated, means
"false truth"--Amini introduces a solitary figure in the form
of a narrator who becomes disillusioned with herself as she approaches a
pond in which her image is reflected. Although she is beguiled by the
"slight breeze" and "soft/cool shadowed woods," the
narrator's ultimate decision to approach the pond is informed by
the expectation that she will be greeted by an image that will confirm
her preconceived notions of identity (ll. 1-2). Leaning into the pond
"to breathe/the beauty" that is certain to be seen in the
reflection, the narrator is confronted with what instead becomes
"the death-face." Despite the ambiguity revolving around what
actually constitutes the death-face, the narrator's unwavering
faith in a reflection that will ideally validate her self-image is
critical to the Black Arts idea that perceptions of self-image and
identity were expected to be reproduced or reaffirmed through visual
aesthetics, and that an awareness, assurance, and articulation of
identity are accompanied by one's ability to see it manifested in
material form. The narrator's proclivity to consciously look toward
physical evidence that might validate preexisting notions of identity
underscores the primary function of visual stimuli in black art to
assist in communicating the concept of identity, and this is further
reinforced by the narrator's preoccupation with what the reflection
will yield. In this sense, the responsibility of Amini's narrator
is evident--she submits to a desire to have perceptions of image
confirmed by the reflection--yet central to this desire is a subtext in
which the ideal image of "beauty" is juxtaposed with that of
the "death-face" in the reflection. The "fault/faux"
of the narrator lies not in her desire to imagine herself in general,
but instead resides in her attempt to see or locate identity in a
visible, recognizable form. As in the poem "Identity," the
potential to realize identity in imagistic forms is unrealistic, and
Amini's work becomes a potential critique of the essentialist
import of visual aesthetics popularized by her contemporaries. In
"Faux-Semblant," the narrator is empowered by the solitude and
tranquility of the pond "drawing [her] / to its stillness."
Although the singular image of the "death-face" is expressive
of all that is not "beauty[full," and performs in opposition
to that which is favorable or ideal in reference to identity, the
tragedy of the situation revolves around the narrator's willingness
to subject herself to the power of imagery as a means of validation.

Black art was frequently susceptible to the agency of images in
provoking audience interaction. Thus, the tendency to exploit images in
the effort to advance an inclusive, nation-building aesthetic was
invariable. The appeal towards an aesthetic that would manifest itself
not only in the material production and physical performance of
consciousness-raising objectives, but also in the form of more nuanced,
interactive methods of communicating ideals of black identity and
culture, is a critical and discursive function of Amini's early
work. Although I do not read her poetry as propaganda that necessarily
endorses the abandonment of accessible archetypal symbols representing
OBAC and/or BAM imperatives, I recognize the manner in which it reflects
an interrogation of the legitimacy and utility of such resources in
marketing concepts of cultural identity. Implicit within Amini's
approach is the message that individuals should feel empowered to
authorize and construct their own unique identities rather than look
toward the objectification of their experiences through a politically
sanctioned set of aesthetics.

The poem "About Communication" further complicates the
perceived functionality of various popular media positioned to
articulate an ideal, culturally specific version of identity (Images
11). In it, the narrator assumes the role of a critic, citing the
inadequacies of "sections / specifications/blueprints /
delineations/ ... words" in the struggle to conceptualize identity
(ll. 12-15). More appropriately, the narrator becomes a veritable voice
of dissent, as her words undermine political and artistic projects that
enforce the commodification and construction of aesthetic paradigms that
function to dictate and legitimize black identity. Thus, the perceptibly
pathological tendency of black artists to create work that reflected a
codification of cultural identity through aesthetics is problematized
here. The first character's statement, "you/know my/self"
suggests her belief in the second character's ability to relate to
her without the intervention of outside resources (ll. 10-11, 14). The
critique of "sections / specifications / blueprints," and so
forth, as metaphors for the forced and perhaps restricted aesthetics of
this period is quite heretical, and the narrator of "About
Communication" asserts a clear, self-defining authority that
undermines principles of poetics, language, and ideology. In this way,
Amini deconstructs the underpinnings of conventional aesthetics and
locates identity in a much more allusive, abject, "intangible"
place, one that eludes even the function of words.

Visual media and performance art were integral to the process of
marketing black art as a socially and politically conscious
community-building aesthetic. For Chicago black artists like Amini,
photography, art, drama, and poetry readings, among other activities,
promoted the ideals of the BAM in a way that encouraged a critical
relationship between artists and mainstream audiences, and which
rendered black art inclusive. In many ways, audiences were themselves
actors as well as primary subjects of critique, since their lifestyles
found thematic materialization in the form of black art. Such an idea is
consistent with the message conveyed in Baraka's "Black
Art," in which he writes, "We want live / words of the hip
world live flesh & / coursing blood" (1943). The accessibility
of the BAM was sustained through visual and performance media that made
images reflective of black life central to its objectives. Narratives
focusing on the empowerment of black communities found artistic
legitimacy in the iconography reinforced through the popularity of black
art. Yet, as much of Amini's poetry conveys in Images, identity and
community are not visually, physically, or aesthetically translatable,
and can never be capable of defining or dictating the experiences of
black people. Such treatments work to humanize the otherwise caricatured
propaganda of the BAM and suggest the implausibility of reflecting or
reinventing "blackness" in any art form. More than forty years
after the publication of Images in Black, the impact of visual media on
the consciousness of contemporary consumers is greater, given the
influence of technology--a trend that former Black Arts writer Johari
Amini may have prophetically anticipated, and against which she
cautioned much earlier.